


love's gonna get you down

by vailserenity



Category: New Mutants (Comics)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Except that Roberto is actually into Sam bc im not a coward, M/M, New Mutants 1983-New Mutants 2019, Or maybe not...?, Unlike Marvel, Unrequited Love, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23149279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vailserenity/pseuds/vailserenity
Summary: It’s Lila. Lila Cheney. Sam’s not-girlfriend from outer space. She’s fun, and cool, and super pretty. She’s everything Bobby is, and everything he’s not. She doesn’t have to pay for affection, and she’s positively luminescent. Sam loves her. She isn’t scared of hurting people. She doesn’t use her power thoughtlessly. She’s a girl. Everything Bobby is not.Sam loves her and Bobby knows objectively that he loves Sam. It’s been a couple years, by now, and they’re family. He can’t say for sure if Sam loves him.Bobby knows he loves Sam, though. In a strictly platonic sense.(That’s something he’s beginning to doubt.)(an exploration of Roberto's feelings towards Sam over the years, until present-day.)
Relationships: Roberto da Costa/Sam Guthrie
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	love's gonna get you down

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so, this is insanely rushed, but i just wanted to write something quick abt them. direct call out post for marvel not letting them get together. house of ideas? more like, home of phobia. anyways, i hope u enjoy !!

**15 YEARS OLD**

It wasn’t that Roberto disliked Lila Cheney. No, she was fun, and cool, and super pretty, and Roberto simultaneously wanted to be her and to be with her. She wasn’t the issue here - no, the issue was that it was Sam. Sam. Sam Guthrie. His best friend, partner in crime. Sam. 

He should be happy for his friend. This is _Lila Cheney_ . The fact that she would like _any_ of them was impressive - except, Bobby isn’t used to losing things. And it’s Sam. It feels like more of a betrayal than if it had been a stranger.

So. He blames Lila. He blames Lila for Sam shifting from questioning Bobby’s fashion and stating that it’s a little too… _out there_ for him, to wearing Lila Cheney tank tops. He blames Lila for Sam singing Lila’s songs at karaoke instead of the duets they used to play for jokes. He blames Lila for Sam spending less time with him.

And, Bobby blames Lila. Because he’s jealous of Sam. Because he scoured out the tickets to meet her, and he’s Roberto da Costa, and if Lila doesn’t want to be with _him_ , then she’s got no taste at all.

He doesn’t want to confront the fact that he understands _why_ she picked Sam. Why it’s totally understandable that she would want to be with him. Bobby gets it. In a totally platonic way, he would also date Sam. Objectively, he’s a very good person to date. 

So he doesn’t confront it. When Sam asks him why he’s off, he laughs it off. Produces baseball tickets. Ignores the stab when Sam says he wants to go here with Lila next time. Ignores the stab when her newest hit, a song for Sam plays across the stadium. Why does Sam get a song, and Bobby doesn’t? Why is Lila writing the songs for Sam, when she barely knows him?

Ignores it all. Doesn’t even confront for a second that maybe, maybe, the one he’s jealous of isn’t Sam. 

Lila is on Earth, right now. Roberto knows because Sam is streaming her new album. It’s beats narrate their training, haunt their movie nights. He can hear it from his room at night, the gentle thrumming vibrating the walls as the others dance around downstairs. They invited him to go to one of her concerts. He’s not lying when he says he isn’t feeling well enough to go.

Something about Lila just makes him burn. He jokes about it being passion. He’s too scared that if he goes to the concert, he’ll knock into an innocent and leave them in a coma. His control over his powers is good enough now that his fear _should_ be unfounded, but he doesn’t want to take any chances. And, if a fight should arise, seeing as they’re mutants and fights follow them everywhere, he doesn’t Lila to see him being unable to protect his friends. It’s happened too many times and - not in front of Lila, someone he has to both impress and beat. 

It’s Lila. _Lila Cheney._ Sam’s not-girlfriend from outer space. She’s fun, and cool, and super pretty. She’s everything Bobby is, and everything he’s not. She doesn’t have to pay for affection, and she’s positively luminescent. Sam loves her. She isn’t scared of hurting people. She doesn’t use her power thoughtlessly. She’s a girl. Everything Bobby is not. 

Sam loves her and Bobby knows objectively that he loves Sam. It’s been a couple years, by now, and they’re family. He can’t say for sure if Sam loves him.

Bobby knows he loves Sam, though. In a strictly platonic sense.

(That’s something he’s beginning to doubt.)

  
  
  


**16 YEARS OLD**

Bobby sneaks out. He goes to a club. Tries to look older than he is. Kisses a boy. Tries to focus on the brown hair and short stature and New York drawl. The voice calling him by the wrong name, a mantra of _Robbie_ s. Rough hand in his hair. Ignores thoughts of Sam.

Realizes that he doesn’t love Sam in a platonic sense.

  
  
  


**18 YEARS OLD**

There’s a certain element to being a superhero that requires you to _like_ pain, at least a little bit. No-one can hold on this long out of the goodness of their heart.

And so, Bobby suffers, watching Sam. They’re not like Doug and Warlock, they’re not fated together in a bizarre turn of fate that made two people _fit_ so well. They’re not like Rahne and Dani, with their own literal connection, nor Kitty and Illyana who are each other's everything, and _more_.

They’re just friends. That’s it.

Best friends.

Right? 

  
  
  


**23 YEARS OLD**

They’ve just joined the Avengers. The Avengers! Captain America contacted them and it’s just - wow. The Avengers. Bobby is willing to overlook a couple mutantphobic comments because, well, it’s _Captain America_ . The very picture of the American superhero dream. Bobby kind of wanted to be him. Not _him_ , because Bobby has managed to come to the realization that Roberto da Costa is pretty damn cool. Not that he didn’t know before, he’s just reaffirmed his belief. 

The New Mutants might not be active anymore but this is something new! Something else. Not _better_ , but at least they don’t have to deal with constant hate and blame from the rest of the world. Of course, he’d rather have the old gang, but this has benefits.

Good press! He definitely deserves some of that. Food fit for tak- borrowing! And most of all, it has Sam.

Him and Sam, against the world.

Plus their support system of amazing friends and a comfortable job position and the fact that they really had were working to save the world, not work against it, but.

Him and Sam. Dubiously facing the world. Together. 

  
  
  


**24 YEARS OLD**

Him, and Sam and Izzy. Bobby tries to face the world, alone, a third wheel. Sam and Izzy are so happy, and Roberto cheers them on from the outside. He really does!

Sam could do better. Roberto knows Izzy, and likes Izzy, and admires Izzy. She’s extremely cool. He’s a little scared of her, too. She almost reminds him of Dani, if not for the lack of a decade of memories and friendship. He knows Sam loves her. In a space of a year, she’s become Sam’s world. 

Sam could do better. Izzy doesn’t know him like Roberto does, hasn’t watched him grow and lead and hurt. Izzy has seen him on the Avengers. Roberto has hoped that whoever loves him will realize he’s a New Mutant at heart.

But, Izzy doesn’t get that. Family dinners at the Guthrie’s shift from jokes about Logan's recent failed endeavour to ban Minecraft on the school wi-fi for distracting the younger mutants, to Steve’s failed endeavour to the exact same for a bunch of adults. Family dinners at the Guthrie’s shift from asking Roberto when he’ll get a girlfriend, to asking when Sam and Izzy will get engaged. Family dinners at the Guthrie’s shift from Sam bringing Roberto, to Sam bringing both of them, before Roberto finally concedes to what he knows is a losing battle and decides not to go.

Then, Izzy is in space. Sam tells Bobby they’re having a child. They have a wedding, in a stolen moment on Earth whilst Izzy sneaks away from her new employment. Bobby is Sam’s best man. It’s a testament to his acting that everyone thinks the slight tears pooling during his speech are those of happiness.

He’s happy for Sam. He’s ecstatic that Sam is happy. The two of them - there was never any chance for Roberto.

But he still cries, and congratulates the couple who is breaking his heart. 

  
  
  


**25 YEARS OLD**

Sam is in space. Roberto has a godson, now, Josiah - he’s determined to buy his love so much so that, if nothing else, he will stay attached to this family through the love of their child. It’s not as creepy as it sounds, he promises.

Roberto misses him. He sees him far too often, considering how willing Sam was to drop everything and see him again. But Roberto misses him.

And more than that, Roberto knows he also missed his chance. Their vacation before the Avengers, before Izzy; the days before Lila during the New Mutants; working around Tabby during X-Force. It’s too late now, though; Sam is married, and Roberto is dying.

He still hasn’t told Sam he has M-Pox. He markets the white streak in his hair as a fashion statement, his cough as something that will blow over soon.

It doesn’t. 

He considers who he wants to go to - he doesn’t want to tell his friends, but he can’t go to someone he doesn’t trust. He can’t be seen as weak. If needed, he’ll protect them, regardless of what his body says. If Dani can fight without her powers, then he can fight with his increased a hundredfold.

He goes to Cecilia Reyes. She tells him he can’t use his powers. He promises that he won’t. He plans to break that promise the moment any of his friends or employees are in danger.

Roberto can’t tell Sam. Because Sam would get worried, and come back to Earth, and leave his wife and son, and then feel guilty because he left them. And that’d be Roberto’s fault. Bobby’s priority at this point is to keep Sam happy, and Sam is happy right now, living in space and blissfully unaware of Roberto’s predicament. Bobby - _Roberto_ , even - is the Supreme Leader of A.I.M., and leader of the New Avengers. He isn’t weak. He isn’t someone Sam should be worrying about.

He holds out for about two weeks. He’s waiting for his plane to arrive, and it’s taking so long, and he will be unfashionably late and this pace, and Maria Hill is kind of scary, so-

Using his powers is almost instinct, and when the sun fills his veins he feels _incredible_.

He drops to the ground. He starts coughing. He pushes back tears of anger until he’s on the plane. He calls Sam.

  
  
  


**25 YEARS OLD (AGAIN)**

**  
****  
**The Earth is out of orbit. Roberto pushes it back. He’s prepared to die for this.

He doesn’t, and dealing with a life with no powers and a best friend universes away is almost worse.

  
  
  


**26 YEARS OLD**

They tell him that Cannonball died. He doesn’t know what he would do if that was true. He thanks every God there might be that it did not turn out to be true. 

  
  
  


**27 YEARS OLD**   
  


Roberto dies instantly, in a blast of mystic energy. It’s painless. He thinks it’s a good way to go, all things considered. Protecting Dani. He didn’t have time to say goodbye, though, and Sam-

They hadn’t spoken in weeks.

  
  
  


**27 YEARS OLD (AGAIN)**

He’s alive, again, and Bobby da Costa is ready to get his best friend back. He recalls a time where Sam travelled to space, saying it was for love. Roberto is ready to do the same. 

Roberto sees them; Izzy, Josiah, Sam. They’re happy. 

It’s a shame Roberto isn’t. Dani shoots a look at him. She knows. Of _course_ she knows. It’s hard to hide your fear of your best friend finding out that you’re secretly in love with him from a psychic who manipulates fears. She feels bad for him; Roberto feels bad for _himself_.

He tells Sam he loves him in terms Sam will understand. Sam gets it. Sam tells Roberto that he loves him. Roberto knows that he doesn’t mean it the same way and that’s okay - he’ll take what he can get.

He lives next to them now, though. And he has money to buy Josiah’s loyalty. And a decade of friendship with Sam over Izzy. He grew up fighting - spent the latter half of his life doing little but that. He’s prepared for this.

  
So, Roberto chooses to stay. He’s not satisfied with second-hand happiness and first-hand bitterness anymore. He’ll figure out how to overcome them. He’ll be Sam’s best friend, and remember when they were just that.

  
  
  


**28 YEARS OLD**

It’s been a year since Roberto left for space. He’s going back to Krakoa now - not _home_ , perse, because that’s forever and always the New Mutants and it won’t be the New Mutants without Sam but, he’s good at taking what he can get.

Izzy catches him before he leaves. Roberto likes her a lot more now than he used to.

She tells him Sam wants to speak, that she and Sam spoke, and that it’s now Roberto’s turn to speak.

He wants to run. He doesn’t. He goes to Sam. He came to space a year ago, for love, and now he’s leaving it for the same reason. 

Sam understands; they’ve developed a language for themselves over the years that Bobby doubts Doug could crack. Surprisingly few words are said.

Well. Roberto _owns_ the building. And half the private sector. He could stay a little longer. And, he does. 


End file.
